1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for delivery of medical treatment through a zone of a body. More particularly, the invention relates to devices and systems for the delivery and injection of therapeutic agents, solutions or injectates throughtout a portion of bodily tissue. Additionally, the invention relates to methods of delivering and injecting a solution across a target site within the body for the treatment of that target site.
2. Description of the Related Art
Hypodermic syringes are widely used in the medical field for administering medicaments. Generally, hypodermic syringes include a needle having a sharpened distal point for penetrating vial stoppers or patient's body. The needle is attached either fixedly or removably to a syringe barrel. In operation, these syringes provide the means to deliver medicaments to a single specific location in the body. In operation, the plunger is depressed into the barrel and the medicament thus discharged. This system, largely unchanged since the invention of the syringe, contemplates delivery of the therapeutic agent at a single location wherein the effect of the therapeutic agent is transmitted through adjacent cells. Problematically, when the therapeutic agent is intended to act against a collection of cells, its effectiveness is reduced and/or delayed by such transmission, even though the overall distance from one side of the collection of cells to the other may be quite small. Practitioners have attempted to overcome this limitation and provide the benefit of a dispersed delivery by simultaneously depressing the syringe plunger with the thumb while also withdrawing the syringe. However, this technique is difficult to learn and is ineffective to properly deliver the therapeutic agent to the desired location in the desired quantities, particularly when the desired location has defined boundaries, such as a tumor.
There is therefore a need for a syringe that disburses a therapeutic agent along a collection of cells in a body.